Battery-power, indoor, smaller scales

One of the weak points is the charging of batteries. Ideally the method should permit the battery not only to power the loco's motor but to recharge itself through the loco's wheels on powered track as it sits between runs. 

The recharging methods I have read in the past involve either removing the battery or connecting a cable between the loco and the charger.

Even better would be a system that permits the battery to operate the loco's motor and to recharge the battery while running on powered rails, for example, between switches.

I do not do garden railroading. I operate indoors in a smaller scale, so I will wait for future articles.

What you describe, Bill

is what is called Hybrid drive. There the primary power comes from the track while an on-board battery functions as a energy storage method on steroids. Adding "on the run" charging, adds to the complexity of the device. The Stanton battery plus charging module is reported to do just that. But the charging module is larger than many of the batteries, so it effectively doubles the volume needed.

Battery Charger - Triton 2 works for me

I have had great success with an Electrifly Triton 2 charger which Clem at Warrior Run Loco Works recommended. I purchased a charger from Cordless Rennovations but it didn't work when I received it. I sent it back for replacement or repair last spring 2016 but countless telephone and emails have gone unanswered so I'm giving up on ever getting that back or using one. Chalk it up to what my son calls, "Stupid Tax"!

The one thing I would change in my quest for battery power is that I should have used a trailing car rather than putting a complete r/c and sound system in each and every locomotive!  I thought I would be doing a lot of operation on my garden railroad but, in fact, primarily just let the trains run in circles. Beside the expense of installing systems in separate locomotives, you have to remember maintain the batteries by charging them on a regular basis and I removed all electrical track pickup from the engines which makes them less saleable to others. Try to sell a large scale  r/c, battery, sound locomotive for even half of what it cost you!

 I'm looking forward to future articles on dead rail in the smaller scales.

Dave Smith

Fort Mill SC

Battery RC in the Garden

Here in Ottawa, the Ottawa Valley Garden Railway Society ( ovgrs.org ) operates regular operating sessions each Saturday from mid-May to mid October.  There is no track power and the ironwood Peter's Pond & Western features a dozen or more trains active at a time using battery/RC.  The website shows pics of ops sessions but also has a very extensive section on how to do battery/RC installs in a wide variety of locos.

Given the lack of an NMRA standard for battery power to a decoder, the only approaches available are proprietary.  The system of choice here has become the Revolution (originally by Aristocraft but the rights have been acquired and it is now known as Revolution 2).  The Revolution is a receiver/sound decoder rolled into one and is not DCC compatible in any way.  The sound is passable but by no means excellent so those who wish good sound install Phoenix soundcard.

Virtually all installations here are self contained in the locomotive as there is a lot of space in nearly all 1:29 or Fn3 (1:20.3) locos for that installation.  Trailing cars have a number of drawbacks - first they are very cumbersome for normal switching/wayfreight operations lengthening the motive power substantially.  Second, good sound is specific to a locomotive so the trailing car, if it is shared by many locos, will not have proper sound (unless you restrict yourself to all EMD 567's or Alco 244's for example).  Lastly, a system like the Revolution uses a proprietary handheld transmitter but this can be linked to any loco with a Revolution receiver installed.  Cost is about $100 per loco for the receiver and about $50 for a Li ion battery.  Sound as always is the pricey component.

Just dawning now is the availability of systems that use a cellphone or tablet with an app to simulate a throttle and broadcast the command over a local WiFi setup.   Also coming available are transmitters based on Bluetooth.  The receiver is a problem in these setups.  If the NMRA would get their act together and define a standard for battery input to a decoder, then the propreitary transmitting/receiving functions could be interfaced to more readily available (read less costly with greater functionality) sound decoders for driving the loco and giving full control of lights/sounds.  This same standard would be very useful to the Dead Rail Society crowd in the smaller scales.  Putting Rx logic on the same board as decoder/sound simply drives everyone back to a much less useful proprietary approach.

Great info, Bruce! I plan to

Great info, Bruce!

I plan to begin rebuilding My HO scale "The CB&Q in Wyoming" when I retire (to Wyoming) next year. I have been contemplating building it dead rail, but clear and understandable info is not all that easy to find (and I'm a mechanical engineer), until now. Your columns have greatly clarified the use of battery power already, and I eagerly look forward to your smaller scale columns in the future.

Mark, I hope to have an HO-gauge article ...

later this year. In time for your retirement.

tsk, tsk tsk, are you sure

tsk, tsk tsk, are you sure you don't mean scale not guage....

Yes I did.

Originally, in the UK about 1900, there were several gauges: 0, 1, 2, 3, etc. They were designed to allow modelers to run on each other's track. There was no real scale, to speak of.

When 0-gauge moved to the USA, we called it O-gauge. Later folks found that 1:48 scale worked pretty well on O-gauge track, as that made the scale gauge about 5 feet.

A smaller gauge, was invented, called Half-O-gauge, abbreviated HO. This was scaled at 1:87.1, making the scale gauge 4 feet 8-1/2 inches.

Scale is a ratio, gauge is a length.

For more details, see:

BTW, gauge-1 is still the predominant gauge in the garden (45 mm track spacing) and is used with scales from 1:20.3 for 3 foot scale gauge to 1:32 for 4 foot 8-1/2 inch gauge.

"Scale is a ratio, gauge is a

or maybe a width? Narrow gauge versus Short gauge?? .......DaveB 

Catching up

Well now I have read part 2, and I have a question about the display of the HiTec charger on page 11 of your column, the display says LP4S and you state that is Lithium-Ion, I would think LP would be Lithium-Polymer?

I searched but did not find a key for the charging display, the manual I found was all about selecting the parameters for charging and they use LiPo and LiIon for those two types.